Espionage and sabotage add to web of intrigue
Sunday July 15 2007
SILVERSTONE had shades of an Ian Fleming novel about it with tales of espionage, sabotage, litigation, mysterious white powder and a shaken and positively stirred Ron Dennis. But more of that later.
Meanwhile, home-grown Hamilton failed to provide the happy ending last Sunday that so many of the full-to-capacity crowd craved. Kimi Raikkonen was the one who reigned supreme and the Finn's win, his third of the season, propelled his hat into a ring that has now four contestants vying for the championship.
There was a defining moment in the fortunes of the McLaren team-mates as Lewis Hamilton and Fernando Alonso continued their personal duel for supremacy. It is generally assumed that McLaren boss Dennis gave the spectators what they had come to see: his protégé on pole position. A lighter fuel load certainly helped Hamilton pull that particular rabbit out of the hat.
But come the race, Alonso got the better of Lewis and no amount of excuses about a bad pit stop could ameliorate the fact that Alonso gained an important psychological advantage over his team-mate, whom he beat fair and square.
When the season is viewed retrospectively, that second place for Alonso, over half a minute ahead of Hamilton, could be seen as the point when the dynamics changed between these two adversaries.
Spyker may be at the other end of the grid, but the talk is full of tales of the espionage scandal involving two engineers, Ferrari's Nigel Stepney and McLaren's Mike Coughlan.
Coughlan's wife Trudy allegedly took two computer disks containing Ferrari classified information, which consisted of a staggering 780 pages, and requested copies of the contents in her local print shop. But lo and behold Mr Printy, who had obviously never read Fleming's For Your Eyes Only, picks up the phone to report the incident and with that he set into motion events that would rattle the reputation of many stalwarts in F1.
Stepney strenuously denies passing this information to Coughlan. He was subsequently dismissed by Ferrari and Coughlan was suspended by McLaren, pending legal proceedings. Meanwhile, the FIA has summoned McLaren to explain itself before an extraordinary meeting on July 26.
Ron Dennis never looks particularly happy at the best of times but at Silverstone his lips seemed to be facing more south than usual. Just when he was hitting his targets in perfection - a race-winning car, the jackpot with Hamilton, his two drivers vying for the championship, McLaren leading the Constructors, their new sponsors Vodafone euphoric, with everything looking very rosy in the Woking garden - this happens.
Dennis is adamant that his cars did not benefit from anything his chief designer might have had going on with Stepney on a personal basis, and he claims that the two were looking for a job with Honda which is why they were in cahoots. Stepney and Coughlan had previously worked at Benetton and Ferrari, so they were no strangers to each other.
To add to the intrigue, prior to Monaco, white powder was found near the Ferrari fuel tanks and again Stepney is implicated in what they are calling sabotage. A Modena district attorney will reveal all in August, but for now all he'll say is "it's not calcium phosphate", whatever that means.
The truth is, engineers have been switching teams forever and bringing with them all sorts of secrets that have been used by their new employer. That is often the very reason they were hired in the first place. A great deal of spying goes on in plenty of unofficial ways, from photographing one another's cars, to hacking into rival teams' pit radios, to mates at rival teams sharing information.
The question on everyone's lips is: did McLaren use any of this information on their cars? McLaren's Managing Director Jonathan Neale is supposed to have been aware of the existence of the data, so it's up to Dennis to prove none of the information reached him and if it did was never used by the team.
But if these documents were stolen and they did come into McLaren's possession, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that the team did benefit, in which case the repercussions could be very serious indeed.
Staying with word of the week, 'Spy', the Spyker team (formerly Jordan) fired it's driver Christijan Albers because of that old chestnut, which many a racing driver will be familiar with: the sponsor stopped paying. Spyker themselves are in financial difficulties and are unofficially up for sale. Eddie Irvine's name is cropping up again as a potential buyer.
Over in the US, no sooner had the tarmac cooled from the heat of 22 Formula One cars, than the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Bernie Ecclestone announced that Indy would not be hosting the Grand Prix next year.
Some of that was probably left-over resentment from what happened in 2005 when only a handful of cars raced because Michelin deemed their tyres to be unsafe. The USA is a vital part of the World Championship if the title is to have any credibility. The sooner they find an alternative venue the better because the manufacturers need the US market more than the US punters need F1.
So, next stop Nurburgring for the European Grand Prix, and home to McLaren's partner, Mercedes. Damage limitation exercises all round next weekend no doubt. There'll be a lot of coughing and spluttering into their Pilseners as the possibility of being expelled from the championship sinks in.
Last year it was Ferrari (Schumacher), Renault (Alonso), Ferrari (Massa) and McLaren (Raikkonen) who completed the top four. But keep an eye out for BMW and the fast-improving Renault.
McLaren will have to endure this Grand Prix before their fate is decided by the FIA the following week. Lose the lead in their world championships or possibly worse? Now that would be a disaster.
Perhaps the last word should go to James Bond. "World domination? The same old dream. Our asylums are full of people who think they're Napoleon."
David Kennedy is Setanta's Formula 1 analyst
